Scientists concluded and identified two new Amazonian fish species, one with spectacular red-orange fins and the other so little that it is strictly classified as a micro fish species.
Both species live in waterways on the limit of human encroachment in the Amazon rainforest, around 25 miles north of the Brazilian city of Apu.
According to the authors of the study, continuing deforestation in the region puts these about inch-long fish, which are part of a species known colloquially as South American darters, at imminent risk of extinction.
Amazon deforestation
Photo by LUIS ROBAYO/AFP via Getty Images
Approximately one million square kilometers of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana since 1978, as per Mongabay.
For most of humanity's civilization, deforestation rates in the Amazon was mostly the result of subsistence farmers clearing land to grow food for their family and local consumption.
However, this began to alter in the late twentieth century, with a growing quantity of deforestation caused by industrial activity and large-scale agriculture.
By the 2000s, cattle-ranching accounted for more than three-quarters of Amazon forest deforestation.
As a byproduct of this transition, forests in the Amazon were removed at a quicker rate than ever before from the late 1970s to the mid-2000s.
Vast swaths of rainforest have been cleared for cattle grazing and soy fields, dams have been built, minerals have been extracted, and communities and colonization schemes have been destroyed.
At the same time, the expansion of roads allowed poor farmers, illicit loggers, and land speculators to settle in previously unavailable woods.
In 2004, however, this tendency began to reverse in Brazil. Annual forest loss in the country which comprises approximately two-thirds of the Amazon's forest cover decreased by around 80% between then and the early 2010s.
A variety of causes contributed to the decline, including greater law enforcement, satellite surveillance, environmentalist pressure, commercial and public sector initiatives, additional protected areas, and macroeconomic changes.
Nonetheless, the trend in Brazil is not shared by other Amazon nations, some of which have seen increased deforestation since 2000.
Murilo Pastana of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and his colleagues identified and characterized two new organisms of Amazonian fish, one with striking red-orange fins and the other so tiny it is theoretically regarded as a miniaturized fish species, in a paper published today, May 16, in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, as per ScienceDaily.
Both creatures are found in waterways during the scope of human expansion into the Amazon rainforest, around 25 miles north of the Brazilian city of Apu.
Pastana and his co-authors, Willian Ohara of the Federal University of Rondônia and Priscila Camelier of the Federal University of Bahia, claimed that growing deforestation in the region puts these approximately inch-long fish, known popularly as South American darters, at imminent risk of extinction.
The more colorful of the two species, Poecilocharax callipterus, is especially vulnerable since its known distribution is restricted to a single stream with around 1.5 square miles of environment.
It was fascinating to discover new species, said Pastana.
In the field, however, the experts.witnessed a forest on fire, logging trucks transporting massive trunks, and cleared patches transformed into a cow pasture.
Pastana, a Brazilian-born scientist, is concerned about conserving the country's biological legacy, and he hoped that by identifying and documenting these species, the Brazilian government would be motivated to safeguard and maintain these newly found, endangered fishes.
The tiny subfamily of previously discovered fish species is likewise highly sought for in the aquarium hobbyist sector.
Pastana, whose research is supported by the Smithsonian Institution's Sara E and Bruce B, Collette Postdoctoral Fellowship in Systematic Ichthyology, believes that the exotic aquarium fish trade could pose a new threat to these two new species while scientists are still formally identifying them and learning about their existence.
These new freshwater species were discovered during excursions in 2015 and 2016.
Pastana stated that the overarching purpose of these expeditions into the Brazilian Amazon was to discover the previously undiscovered biological gems of the various streams in the Madeira River Basin, the world's greatest river basin in terms of fish species.
